Team mercenary GB
Part 1 – the early years
Nick Must
H ere are three questions:
1) How do governments cope with the need to covertly
interfere in overseas territories?
2) How do governments cope with the shrinkage of armed
forces driving niche-trained people onto the jobs market?
3) How do corporations ensure that their vested interests in
foreign areas are maintained?
They all have the same answer: Private Military
Contractors (PMCs).
Much media coverage in recent years has focused on
American PMCs such as Blackwater – now known as ‘Xe
Services’. 1 However, in this article, I am going to focus on
those companies that are based in the Great Britain because
Britain was, once again, a leading instigator in the field. As I
see it, the topic can be split into two sections: firstly, the
personnel that staffed the mercenary companies and,
secondly, the methods these companies used to transfer their
expertise overseas.
Mercenary personnel
In the mid 1960s two ex-commanders of the Special Air
Service, Sir David Stirling and John Woodhouse, formed a
security company which they named Watchguard Interational
(aka Watchguard). During their military careers, Stirling and
Woodhouse had established extensive connections with the
ruling families and governments of the major Middle Eastern
and African states. This proved to be a fertile ground for the
new venture. In a brief history of Watchguard, within his wider
1 The name change was prompted by the overwhelming critical mass
of negative publicity regarding incidents in the Middle East.
review of PMCs, Christopher Kinsey points out that, ‘none of
these services were undertaken without the consent of the
British government’.2
During most of the 1960s, David Stirling and his
associates in the British mercenary field were involved in
operations in the Yemen that were, at the very least, covertly
approved by the government of the United Kingdom. Stephen
Dorril’s book on MI6 has a chapter that details how both SIS
and GCHQ provided what was, at times, significantly more
than discrete assistance.3 The entire cadre of Stirling’s
assistant commanders in Watchguard appear to have been
current or ‘recently retired’ members of either the regular 22nd
Special Air Service (SAS) regiment (e.g. Lt-Col. John
Woodhouse) or the Territorial 21st (e.g. Col. Jim Johnson4 ).
Many of the regular mercenaries were also ex-UK special
forces and, specifically, ex-SAS as well. A large number of
Foreign Legionaries were also recruited.
Not everything that Watchguard touched turned to gold.
At the very start of the 1970s, Stirling suffered an
embarrassing setback with his involvement in what became
known as ‘the Hilton Assignment’. In the autumn of the
previous year, Colonel Gaddafi had led a bloodless coup
against the ruling royal family in Lybia. An essential part of
Stirling’s counter-coup plan was the freeing of political
prisoners from Tripoli jail – an insalubrious institution which
was ironically nicknamed ‘the Hilton’. Over a period of almost
two years there were at least three attempts to set the
operation into motion. Each time, however, it seemed as if the
usual unofficial sanction was not entirely forthcoming. From
impounded arms shipments to stern warnings from the
Intelligence community, the plot seemed doomed. Indeed,
2 See Christopher Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers and International Security:
The Rise of Private Military Companies, (London: Routledge, 2006) pp.
46-49.
3 See Stephen Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London:
Fourth Estate, 2000) chapter 31.
4 Colonel Johnson’s obituary in the Daily Telegraph (13 August, 2008)
has some details on their activities in the Yemen:
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2553726/Colonel-JimJohnson.html>.
Stirling’s own operational security was far from first rate as he,
‘was telling all and sundry at White’s [the London club] about
the operation.5
The uprisings, coups and general civil unrest in countries
such as the Yemen, Angola, Congo, Oman and the Biafran War
in Nigeria all provided work for British mercenaries in the ‘60s
and ‘70s. In the post-colonial era into which most of the Middle
Eastern and African states had emerged, there were tensions
which organisations such as Watchguard could mitigate or –
alternatively – instigate. As Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. ‘Kayode
Fayemi succinctly put it: ‘The response by the colonialists was
to use newly discharged soldiers from the metropolitan states
to crush, sabotage, frustrate or delay the aspirations for selfdetermination.’6
Some of the mercenaries who fought in these conflicts
were not even what one might call ‘experienced soldiers’ – i.e.
professionals who might be expected to operate under some
form of a code of conduct. A prime example was Costas
Georgiou (the infamous, and psychotic, ‘Colonel’ Callan) who
had served in the British Army but with a career that was far
from lengthy, or illustrious. A prime example of Georgiou’s
unhinged behaviour was that he and Parachute Regiment
comrade Michael Wainhouse robbed a Post Office near Bangor
in January of 1972, using their army-issued weapons.7
Duly convicted, they were both sentenced to five years
imprisonment. Following their release, they were involved in
the Angola mercenary operation of 1975. Georgiou, by then
affecting the title and name Colonel Callan, gained notoriety
for his ‘leadership’, being overall commander with Wainhouse
as his second-in-command or ‘2ic’. When the whole event
finally went pear-shaped, Georgiou was captured and tried
5 The quote regarding Stirling’s loose lips is from Dorril, MI6 (see
footnote 3) p. 738. See also both Patrick Seale and Maureen
McConville, The Hilton Assignments (London: Temple Smith, 1973) and
Kinsey (see footnote 2) pp. 48-49.
6 Abdel-Fatau Musah and J.‘Kayode Fayemi (eds), Mercenaries: An
African Security Dilemma (London: Pluto Press, 2000) p. 20
7 For more detail see Chapter 6 of David Tomkins, Dirty Combat:
Secret Wars and Serious Misadventures (London: Mainstream Publishing,
2008).
along with a dozen other soldiers; he was one of the four that
were sentenced to death by firing squad while the other men
were all given lengthy prison sentences.8
The man who acted as recruiter for the ‘75 Angolan
enterprise was John Banks, another Parachute Regiment
veteran – albeit one with a more decent seven years of
service. Having apparently met David Stirling in 1970 during
the drawn out Lybian build-up, John Banks went on to
amusingly name his mercenary recruitment company Security
Advisory Services (i.e. S.A.S.). Banks never was capable of any
level of subtlety. Interviewed by an Australian newspaper
following the trial of Georgiou and his compatriots, Banks
spoke from ‘his flat above an insurance office in the Surrey
town of Camberly’ to say that – all things considered – it had
been a worthwhile venture.9 I suspect it was certainly a
financially worthwhile venture for Mr Banks in spite of his claim,
documented in the newspaper report, that a ‘former business
partner’ had stolen virtually all of the money that was
supposed to have paid the fighters on the ground.
Banks is a figure from this murky world about whom it is
surprising to learn that he is still alive today. Following his
attainment of notoriety from the Angolan recruitment, he
authored a (shortish) book which, from its cover image, seems
to have been aimed at the pulp readership end of the
market.1 0 Since then he has continued to amuse and bemuse
in equal measure with his antics. Convicted of ‘demanding
$250,000’ from the Nicaraguan embassy in London in return
for information he claimed to hold regarding ‘A contract
8 See the archived UPI report ‘Seven British mercenaries, released
unexpectedly after eight years’ at <http://www.upi.com/Archives/
1984/02/28/Seven-British-mercenaries-released-unexpectedly-aftereight-yearsin/5976446792400/>.
9 The Age (Melbourne, Australia) 13 July 1976, archived at
<https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19760713&id=
9PFUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Q5IDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5072,2878222&hl=en>
10 John Banks, The wages of war : the life of a modern mercenary,
(London: Cooper, 1978). The overly dramatic cover can be seen via
the Amazon listing at <https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/
images/I/81yig-6M-SL.jpg>.
to assassinate former President Somoza’,1 1 Banks
subsequently disappeared while on compassionate
leave from Coldingley prison in Surrey. He was recaptured in
late 1981.1 2
Ever one to follow a trend, Banks was involved in a
Customs and Excise drugs sting in the 1990s.1 3 Much more
recently he has been touting a story that ‘western intelligence
agencies actually wanted the bombing to take place’ of the
2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.14
Not all mercenaries were chancers and blaggers. There
are the ‘gentlemen’ professional soldiers, who came to be
exemplified by Mike Hoare. Demobbed at the end of WWII with
the rank of Major, and an admittedly virulent anti-Communist,
he led the mercenary force which fought in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo from July ‘64 to December ‘65. In those
intense 18 months he had, according to a biography by his
son Chris, ‘swept the Congo clean of savages, and made
modern mercenary soldiering briefly but confusingly
respectable’.15
The career of Mike Hoare was not without controversy,
however, as he infamously lead a failed attempt to instigate a
coup in the Seychelles in the autumn of 1981. Arrested after
hijacking a plane so his team could escape, Hoare became
another mercenary that went to jail. Upon his release, aged
68, he vowed never to go to war again.1 6 This seems to have
been a wise choice as he is still alive today and in his late 90s.
The City of London even saw the periods of tension in
the 70s as an opportunity for new business. Several Lloyds
11 See <https://theoldbailey.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/r-vs-johnbanks-a-face-from-the-angola-civil-war-days/>.
12 See the news clipping shown at <http://www.mercenary-wars.net/
angola/john-banks.html>.
13 See The Independent, 5 April 1993 at
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-cleared-incustomsheroin-sting-operation-to-arrest-businessman-for-drugsmuggling-relied-on-1453561.html>.
14 See <http://www.cottrellsdarkworld.com/current.html>.
15 See <http://www.mercenary-wars.net/biography/mike-hoare.html>.
16 See the archived Chicago Tribune article ‘“Mad Mike” Gives Up His
Mercenary Life’ at <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-0508/news/8501280609_1_south-africa-hoare-diego-garcia>.
insurance syndicates of the time began to offer kidnap
insurance packages, which included both a level of anti-kidnap
training and ransom negotiation. Hogg Robinson was a leader
in this and they established a specific subsidiary, Control
Risks, to manage the new portfolio.1 7 Being desk jockeys
rather than ‘action men’, Control Risks asked a quartet of exSAS officers, which included Major David Walker, to handle the
day-to-day operations. A further subsidiary was soon set up
by Walker and co. and given the exotic name Keenie Meenie
Services (hereafter KMS). All of the senior men in KMS were
either ex-SAS and/or had been involved in Stirling/
Watchguard’s 1960s covert campaign in the Yemen.
The business model for KMS, plain and simple, was the
acquiring of any government’s security contracts wherever and
whenever – as long as the price was right.18 This philosophy
lead to some questionable activities, such as the training of
– Special forces for Qaboos bin Said, the Sultan of Oman (who
had been advanced to the throne with the help of the SAS);1 9
– Mujahideen from Afghanistan2 0 (some were trained in the
17 See: Robert D. Hershey Jr, ‘Where Kidnapping Is Business’, The
New York Times, 29 December 1979 available online at
<http://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/29/archives/where-kidnapping-isbusiness-london-firm-takes-on-risk-and-ransom.html> N.B. that the
person named in the article as ‘Arish R. Tulle’ is actually Major Arish
Richard Turle, a senior figure in the Special Air Service before retiring
after a long career in the UK army. Still active in the security business
today, Turle has most recently worked for Janusian Security Risk
Management (which itself is a part of the much larger Risk Advisory
Group). Janusian have been in Iraq since 2003.
18 KMS have even been overtly approved as a UK government
contractor. For a short period of time their work included the ‘Armed
protection for government representatives overseas’, as discussed in
the Cabinet papers held in the National Archives at ref. PREM 19/1698
and available for paid download from the National Archives website at
<http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14568615>.
19 See ‘Britain, Oman and “Our kind of guy”’ at
<https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/oman-our-kind-of-guy/>. Four
members of the SAS team sent to Oman to assist in the 1970 coup
had defrauded the Sultan of ‘thousands of pounds in a payroll scam’,
on which see <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/232271.
stm> and <http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/
1998/dec/09/oman#S6CV0322P0_19981209_CWA_20>.
20 See John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and
International Terrorism (London: Pluto Press, 1999) pp. 76-79.
Scottish highlands) which turned into the ultimate blowback;
– Sri Lankan government officials (both police and military)
who were viciously repressing the Tamil people.2 1
In the late 1980s, KMS had a couple of problems. The
first became quite a personal embarrassment for Major
Walker, as he was linked to Oliver North’s highly questionable
activities in Central America. Walker had allowed KMS to
provide arms and general assistance to the Contras, as well
as some rather harsh ‘hands-on’ assistance in the Nicaraguan
capital, Managua.2 2 The media attention that this episode
received prompted Walker and his colleague Jim Johnson to
pass the management responsibility for KMS to two other exSAS men, Lieutenant Colonel Keith Farnes and Major Brian
Baty.2 3
Major Baty had previously come to the public’s attention
when he had appeared in a Dublin court during the 1976 trial
of a group of SAS soldiers who due to a ‘map reading error’
had crossed the border from Northern Ireland.2 4 One of those
hapless map-reading novice squaddies was Corporal Ilisoni
Ligairi – a Fijian. Having completed twenty years with both the
regular 22nd and the territorial 21st SAS, Ligairi retired from
the British Army. His extensive military training was still useful
in his home country, however, as he later rose to be Colonel
commanding the (rather unimaginatively titled) Counter
Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the Fijian Military Forces.2 5 He
was also party to the attempted Fiji coup in 2000.2 6
With KMS now under their control, Johnson and Baty
21 See <https://www.tamilnet.com/img/publish/2014/07/
britains_dirty_war.pdf> and also ‘Britain allowed ex-SAS officers to train
Sri Lankans as Tamil Tigers rebelled’ in The Guardian, 16 January 2014.
22 See ‘The assassination business’ in The Scotsman, 26 July 1988
and ‘The Army: The Years 1984 – July 1987’ in The Colombo Telegraph,
9 May 2015 <https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/the-armythe-years-1984-july-1987/>.
23 Cooley (see footnote 20) p. 78
24 See ‘Army sets up new dirty tricks’ in The New Statesman 12 August,
1983.
25 The unit’s name was pinched directly from the Special Air Service’s
own Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit.
26 See ‘Fijian coup colonel took part in SAS blunder’ in the Daily
Telegraph, 22 June 2000.
were themselves a little bit careless and got caught out when,
in April 1989, Ken Livingstone MP asked a question in
Parliament about an advertisement KMS had placed in a
publication titled ‘Internal Security — Counter Insurgency’.2 7
This ‘brochure’ as Hon. Tim Sainsbury (the Secretary of State
for Defence) referred to it in his official Parliamentary answer,
had been produced by International Military Services Limited,
which had itself previously been known as Millbank Technical
Services Limited.2 8 Both International Military Services and
Millbank Technical Services have had a long history of acting as
broker for some of the biggest arms deals. As Duncan
Campbell detailed in the New Statesman of 17 October 1980,
this role included ‘bribes’ or, in the sanitised language,
‘commission payments’.2 9
Mercenary operations
I briefly mentioned earlier that KMS trained government forces
in Sri Lanka for the repression of the Tamil people. This
connection came about following input from MI5’s Jack Morton,
who used his extensive counter-insurgency experience from
India, Malaya and Northern Ireland to help restructure the
intelligence agencies of President Junius Jayewardene.
Surveillance of Tamil separatists was carried out not only in Sri
Lanka but also on those who were living in exile in the United
Kingdom. Regarding the Tamil Coordinating Committee
operating from London at the time, Thatcher was to tell the
Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, ‘We keep a close eye on [them]
and shall continue to do so.’3 0
The Sri Lankan government pressed further and an
arrangement was made for two senior Sri Lankan police
27 See <http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1989/
apr/04/keenie-meenie-services>.
28 See the Companies House online record at
<https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00924462>.
29 Campbell’s article is online at <http://www.duncancampbell.org/
menu/journalism/newstatesman/newstatesman-1980/
Arms%20sales.pdf>.
30 See the December 1981 briefing paper prepared for Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher: The National Archives, PREM 19/1395, ‘Sri Lanka:
Visit of Foreign Minister’, 21 December 1981.
officers to visit and observe the counter-insurgency policy that
was being carried out in Northern Ireland.3 1 The influence of
Morton in this process is unmistakeable, as he had recently
been operational in Northern Ireland himself – and his work
there for MI5 had been integral to counter-insurgency. The
visit duly took place in June of 1983, less than a year after the
killings in Northern Ireland that lead to the ‘Stalker Inquiry’.
This was a counter-insurgency policy that necessitated police
investigation from the UK mainland but which was approved
for close observation by visiting foreign police officers.
Having received such an encouraging ‘come-on’ from the
British, it is of little surprise that there was a further request
for some actual in-country training, on home turf, for the Sri
Lankan police. The nexus of conflicting interests was,
however, a complex issue for Thatcher’s government. They
were in the midst of long negotiations with India over
significant arms sales while the Indian government of Indira
Gandhi was supportive of the Tamil separatist movement in Sri
Lanka. It would be a shame if the arms sales would be lost if,
or rather when, the Indian government found out about direct
British training. A solution that pleased both sides of the
argument was reached when KMS were contracted to run the
courses. Confirmation of this fact comes directly from the
Special Task Force of the Sri Lankan police. Like all modern
institutions, they have a website that includes a bit of
background history. This includes the (verbatim) statement:
‘An Institution in the United Kingdom known as the “Kini
Mini Service” (K.M.S.) comprising of British ex-SAS officers
provided training to the STF officers at the very
beginning. Among the subjects taught were tactics
adopted by Riot squads, weapon training, firing
practices, Counter Terrorism Search, Handling of
Explosive, Mapping & Use of Compass equipment and
31 See the section ‘Following in Thatcher’s footsteps’ in the Corporate
Watch report ‘FOR SALE: Top UK riot cops. EXPORT: To war zones and
dictators’ at <https://corporatewatch.org/news/2013/oct/15/sale-topuk-riot-cops-export-war-zones-and-dictators> plus the papers on ‘UK
assistance to Sri Lankan police force’ held in the National Archives at:
<http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C15242720> and
<http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16248223>.
First Aid. Also the introduction of the world renowned
American-made M16 Automatic Rifle.’3 2
Encouraged by the success of KMS, two other ex-SAS officers,
Jeremy Trevaskis3 3 and Peter Le Marchand, wanted a piece of
the Sri Lankan pie for their own company Falconstar Limited,
which had already secured similar work with the Ugandan
police.3 4 In the autumn of 1984 the private secretary to
Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe wrote a letter to the Prime
Minister’s Office at 10 Downing Street regarding the issue of
KMS and Falconstar being involved in Sri Lanka. In the letter, it
was acknowledged that the Indian government were already
aware of the situation and, as expected, had expressed some
concern. The rather bland assurance was further given that
‘this is purely a commercial matter and that HMG are not
involved’.35
The repression of the Tamils was soon very violent, with
imprisonment, seemingly random beatings and targeted
killings – a perfect copy of the British counter-insurgency
campaign in Northern Ireland. The Amnesty International
report for 1985 (covering the period January to December
1984) is stark in its criticism of the situation:
‘Amnesty International was concerned about reports of
32 See <http://www.police.lk/index.php/special-task-force->.
33 Jeremy Trevaskis is the son of Sir Kennedy Trevaskis, who had
been Britain’s High Commissioner for Aden from 1963 to 1965. It
would seem that Trevaskis Jnr. is still in the inteligence world, as he
was one of the Stratfor subscribers exposed by Wikileaks in 2015. See
<https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/57/579228_re-welcome-tostratfor-.
html>).
34 See ‘Thatcher backed Ugandan crackdown’ by Phil Miller at
<https://corporatewatch.org/news/2014/may/29/thatcher-backedugandan-crackdown-worse-amin-era>.
35 A scan of the letter is at <http://www.jdslanka.org/images/art_
img/news_features/politics_current_affairs/peter_rickerts_letter.jpg>.
The letter’s author was Peter Ricketts, later knighted, and chair of the
Joint Inteligence Committee 2000-01 and the UK’s first National
Security Adviser 2010-12. After a long career in the spook world, his
final diplomatic posting was the most agreeable position as
Ambassador to Paris (see <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
uknews/10931316/Too-many-cooks-for-Our-Man-in-Paris-Sir-PeterRicketts.html>). He is now Visiting Professor at the Department of War
Studies, Kings College London (see <http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/
departments/warstudies/people/visiting/ricketts.aspx>).
random killings of non-combatant Tamil civilians by
members of the security forces. It also remained
concerned about the detention of Tamils, members of
left-wing opposition parties and students under
legislation permitting long-term detention without charge
or trial. It continued to receive reports of widespread
torture of detainees. Several reports of deaths in
custody, allegedly as a result of torture or shooting,
were received.’3 6
Confirmation comes from the autobiography of one of the exSAS trainers, Robin Horsfall, who quit after only three months
on the job, having reached the conclusion that he was
‘working for the wrong side’.3 7 Further to this, he has
confirmed to journalist Phil Miller that Major Brian Baty3 8 from
the KMS management team was present in country to provide
the overall supervision of the training. Of even more
interesting note is that Tom Morrell, one of a number of
Fijians3 9 recruited into the British Army who further passed
selection for the SAS, ‘was in charge of KMS training at a Sri
Lankan army camp for junior officers’.4 0 I mention this fact, as
I believe that Fijian soldiers would have been deliberately
selected not only for their counter-insurgency experience, but
also because they were not the average Caucasian who
would stand out in a Sri Lankan community.
Another instance of British counter-insurgency being
exported to an ex-colony came in the form of India’s internal
conflict with militant Sikhs and their occupation of the Golden
Temple at Amritsar. A set of papers released to the National
Archives in 2014 showed that the government of Indira Gandhi
36 See p. 242 of the Amnesty International Report 1985, available at
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/POL10/002/1985/en/>.
37 Robin Horsfall, Fighting Scared (London: Cassell Military
Paperbacks, 2002) p. 221
38 See footnote 24.
39 Morrell was a fellow countryman of Ilisoni Ligairi (of whom, see
footnote 26).
40 On Baty and Morrell working for KMS, see p. 20 of Phil Miller,
‘Exporting police death squads: From Armagh to Trincomalee’,
available online at <http://www.ptsrilanka.org/images/documents/
exporting_police_death_squads_web.pdf>.
requested military advice and/or assistance from the British
government early in 1984. True to established form, PM
Margaret Thatcher was quick to oblige. A Special Air Service
officer was dispatched to India and wrote up a plan for the
storming of the Temple; if the Indian government had asked
for additional assistance, the SAS would have been willing to
provide it. Following media coverage of the papers released
under the thirty year rule, a report by Cabinet Secretary
Jeremy Heywood revealed that:
‘There does appear to have been some internal UK
military consideration, immediately after the UK military
adviser’s visit to India, of whether to offer training for
the potential operation, if requested by the Indian
authorities, and if agreed by UK Ministers.’4 1
The plan that was eventually carried out by Indian military
forces lasted a total of ten days. The BBC’s long-serving India
correspondent Mark Tully was present in Amritsar during the
four days leading up to the attack. In the Daily Telegraph thirty
years later, Tully wrote: ‘Sikhs in India, and in the West, were
outraged by what they saw as the defilement of their holiest
place. And that anger remains 30 years later....’42
The Cabinet Office report does clarify that the
operation, as carried out by the Indian military, was somewhat
different from that suggested by the SAS officer. Nonetheless
the British government were willing to provide advice from
British special forces to a foreign government in relation to the
internal suppression of religious-based dissent. Both Downing
Street and Foreign Office documents relating to UK approval
41 See page 5 of ‘Cabinet Secretary report to PM on allegations of UK
involvement in the Indian operation at Sri Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar
1984’, at <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/277292/Cabinet_Secretary_report_to_PM_on_alle
gations_of_UK_involveme....pdf>.
42 See ‘Operation Blue Star: How an Indian army raid on the Golden
Temple ended in disaster’ at <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
worldnews/asia/india/10881115/Operation-Blue-Star-How-an-Indianarmy-raidon-the-Golden-Temple-ended-in-disaster.html>.
Those who have heard any of the general news reports filed by
Mark Tully, on either BBC Radio 4 or the World service, will know that
he is a measured and peaceful man. In his Telegraph piece, however,
one can feel the huge disappointment.
for SAS involvement in the planning can be seen online.43
British mercenary operations continued apace in the
1990s. Simon Mann, co-founder of Executive Outcomes and
Sandline International was, true to form, an ex-SAS officer.
Executive Outcomes was hired by the Angolan government in
1993 and tasked with the defeat of the UNITA rebels. A civil
war had been ongoing within that country since the mid-tolate 1960s and this contract was worth $40 million per year.4 4
Mann gave an account of Executive Outcome’s work in Angola
as part of a Chatham House lecture in 2011.4 5
‘Brigadier General’ Mann, as he was known in the
Angolan army,4 6 is known in the United Kingdom for his part in
the Equatorial Guinea coup attempt of 2004. A spectacular
failure, it lead to a 34 year jail term for Mann, a $500,000 fine
and four-year suspended jail term for Mark Thatcher47 and the
production by the BBC of a rather good satire. Simon Mann
first met Mark Thatcher in 1997 soon after he (Mann) had
moved to live in Cape Town. It’s in chapter seven of his book
Cry Havoc 4 8 that Mann starts to really lay into Mark Thatcher,
and this makes for a most enjoyable read. ‘Scratcher’, as he
later came to be known amongst the military men who played
a part in the coup, was their final bail-out option if all else had
failed. Predictably, everything else did fail... as did Thatcher to
43
See <https://stopdeportations.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/prem19-1273_binder.pdf>. The Guardian also had two articles of interest in
January 2014: ‘Margaret Thatcher gave full support over Golden
Temple raid, letter shows’ at <https://www.theguardian.com/world/
2014/jan/15/margaret-thatcher-golden-temple-raid-support-letter>
and ‘Sikhs demand inquiry into claims of British role in 1984 Amritsar
attack’ at <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/13/sikhinquiry-british-1984-amritsar-india-golden-temple>.
44 Sean McFate, ‘The Evolution of Private Force’ (chapter 6, p. 72) in
Joakim Berndtsson and Christopher Kinsey (eds.), The Routledge
Research Companion to Security Outsourcing, (London: Routledge, 2016).
45 Available online at <https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/
chathamhouse/021111mann.pdf>.
46 His highest rank in the British Army had been as Captain. Accounts
differ as to whether he was ‘given’ the Brigadier General rank or
whether he ‘demanded it’ as a part of his package. Either way, he
didn’t refuse it.
47 See ‘Thatcher fined over “coup plot”’ at
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4169557.stm>.
48 London: John Blake Publishing, 2011.
honour his position.
Mann was released from prison having served just over
a year of his jail sentence. This followed a Damascene
conversion and the provision of security advice to Equatorial
Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema (the target of the
2004 coup attempt). In 2011 Mann was working with Moda
Solutions4 9 (a ‘security company’, naturally) of which Lord Des
Browne (a former Defence Secretary) has been a past director
and Lord Brennan (a QC at the influential Matrix Chambers) is
a current one.
As I hope I have shown in this history of British
mercenary operations, there has been significant business for
Britain in the exporting of military expertise to foreign regimes
who need some help with awkward elements of their
indigenous populations. This is as nothing, however,
compared to how the ‘war on terror’ has enabled the PMC
industry to really take off and start to draw in truly obscene
amounts of money... and Britain is represented at the highest
level.
In part two I will cover the period following the second
invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Nick Must is an independent researcher
with a particular interest in Special Forces.
49 See Simon Mann, ‘My biggest mistake was approaching Mark
Thatcher’ in the Independent, 31 October 2011 at
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/simon-mannmy-biggest-mistake-was-approaching-markthatcher-6255035.html>